So I'm getting over my little knee problem and have started running again, and I thought it'd be cool to plot my progress on a map of the U.S., running across the country. I've always thought it would be cool to walk across the U.S., but I can't figure out how to get my work done in that scenario, so this is my fallback.

And then I thought, "Hmm, this is a pretty good idea for a website. If I started a website, could I get enough people to sell some advertising and stuff and maybe make some money?"

So I went out looking to see if it's already out there. The concept isn't overly innovative, so I see a fair amount of sites out there that talk about it, but they all seem to be pretty lame. Here's a map, print it, color in your progress with a crayon kind of stuff.

What I'd like is a web site where you plot your progress and then see a google maps street view of your location, and then a virtual tour of towns that you walk through, and an atlas so you can pick your route as you go, and an interactive map so you can plot your route. That doesn't exist.

Is there money in this? What's the revenue model? Any web designers out there who would want to collaborate on this?

In my 15 minutes of looking, I found one web site that's actually kind of close, though it's still basic. http://exercise.lbl.gov/index.html is a federal government site, and they do the street view pictures, which is pretty cool, and the online log. However, they only give you one route, an inexplicable Yorktown, Virginia, to Florence, Oregon, route, and you can't vary from that. Also, you don't get local information along your route as far as I can tell.

I signed up for it, though, since it's the best option out there, and am now 11 miles into my journey. I've left Yorktown and am now on this nice road about 2 miles from Williamsburg. Anyone else want to wander along?

I am way behind in logging my virtual run, but I will get it caught up... main reason I am posting though is that I just got back from a 20 miler. Finished in 2:43:46 averaged 8:11 miles... and I feel great. tired, but no aches and pains so to speak... Now I am going to throw a brisket on the smoker and try and eat the whole ****er myself about 8 pm tonight.

Nice! That's a good pace, too.

I keep thinking that I should do a marathon, but I'm not sure I'm up for it. I may just stick with halfs.

I'm doing another mountain half next weekend if I can get over a cold or whatever this is. Keeping up the training for summer and that Pike's Peak climb.

As a team, we just crossed 1,000 miles according to my books. 1,004 miles as of today. We're almost all the way across Kentucky and are about to enter Illinois.

My mileage is way down since I've been sick the entire month of March. I was averaging about 157 miles per month in January and February, and this month I'm only at 107. It's been a long March if I can borrow Mao's term. Bleah.

I'm at 420.8 miles now, about 2 miles from Wytheville, Virginia. I should be able to see Tennessee this week and then start up that last stretch toward Kentucky. Man, Virginia has been long. I should be able to hit Kentucky before the end of April, though.

I might have posted this on here, but I gave up on getting ready for a full this spring. The new baby and tons of snow this winter just made it too tough. But I ran the Rock the Parkway half on Saturday in 1:37:40 (7:27), which beats my previous PR by almost 5 minutes.

I'm going to try to stay in half-marathon shape over the summer. I'm also doing a few tri's here and there. My name is in the NYC marathon lottery, so if it hits, I'll be doing that in November.

1:37 is pretty awesome. I don't think I could've done that even in my prime.

And did you catch that chick in the yellow?

I was planning to run a half next month here in Denver that looked like a nice easy course for a change - a shallow downhill the whole way other than a couple of little hills. It would've been really convenient in terms of location, but when I went to sign up they'd closed down entries. The course is on a running trail, and I guess it doesn't have much capacity. That was a bummer since I wanted to run it and thought it might be a good course for me to break 2 hours. Now I think I'll go do one that's about 80 miles north of here, but the course doesn't match my strengths very well.

It's funny that you ask that. The girl in the yellow and I kept passing each other for the first 10 miles or so. I had a pretty good kick (ran the last 1.1 at a little under a 6:30 pace), so I'm guessing that I got her.

That sucks about the race filling up. You need to run a flat race. All that mountain climbing is bad for you

The lottery was today. Denied. They can only tell me no one more time, though.

What does that mean? Does it mean that you're only allowed to submit your request one more time or does it mean that after the next denial they have to accept your subsequent requests or does it mean something else?

__________________

"I'll see you guys in New York." ISIS Caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to US military personnel upon his release from US custody at Camp Bucca in Iraq during Obama's first year in office.

What does that mean? Does it mean that you're only allowed to submit your request one more time or does it mean that after the next denial they have to accept your subsequent requests or does it mean something else?

They have some rule where if you lose the lottery X years in a row, you get automatically accepted in Year X+1. I think X=5